Episode 16 – Expert Opinion – Michael Shermer
In this episode, we join up with historian of science Dr. Michael Shermer to investigate the cross-fertilization between science and free speech. Michael Shermer is a prolific writer on science, […]
Category: Episodes
Episode 15 — Paper-bullets and the forgotten martyrs of radical free speech
Episode 15 returns to Europe and formative events in 17th Century England, where a mostly forgotten group of radicals demanded a written constitution guaranteeing free speech, liberty of conscience, […]
Episode 14 – ‘Universal Peace’: Religious tolerance in the Mughal empire
Episode 14 leaves the West and heads to 16th and 17th Century India and the Mughal empire. In particular, the rule of Akbar the Great. A century before John Locke’s […]
Episode 13 – Expert Opinion – Jonathan Haidt
In this episode, we do a bit of time travel and leave the 17th century for a discussion of free speech on American college and university campuses today. Our guest […]
Episode 12 – Expert Opinion – Teresa Bejan
We enter the early modern age with an expert opinion featuring Teresa Bejan, associate professor at Oriel College, Oxford University and author of “Mere Civility: Disagreement and the Limits of […]
Episode 11: The Great Disruption – Part II
In episode 11 we continue to survey the wreckage after hurricane Luther was unleashed on Europe with the Reformation. When the Reformation mutated and spread across the continent a […]
Episode 10 – The Great Disruption: Part I – The Printing Press and the Viral Reformation
The disruptive effects of the internet and social media on the spread of information are unprecedented. Or are they? In episode 10 of Clear and Present Danger, we cover […]
Episode 9 – Expert Opinion – Christine Caldwell Ames
Our last stop in the Middle Ages is an interview with professor Christine Caldwell Ames, who is an expert on medieval heresy and inquisition in Judaism, Christianity, and Islam. […]
Episode 8 – The hounds of God – medieval heretics and inquisitors
From the High Middle Ages, Europe developed into a “persecuting society,” obsessed with stamping out the “cancer” of heresy. But questions about how this was accomplished — and the consequences […]
Episode 7 – Expert Opinion – Peter Adamson
In our second expert opinion episode, Jacob Mchangama talks with Peter Adamson, who is a professor of philosophy at Ludwig Maximilian University of Munich and host of the podcast “History […]